The Hegseth Investigation. The allegations that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a “Kill them all” order during a U.S. interdiction of suspected drug-running boats in the Caribbean are not just another scandal or just more fodder for cable-TV shoutfests. These allegations strike at the heart of American military law, civilian control of the armed forces, and the country’s credibility abroad. If investigators confirm that Hegseth directed an indiscriminate lethal action against unarmed or surrendering individuals, that would meet the threshold of a war crime under U.S. military code and international humanitarian law. The next steps are unavoidable and explosive: Congress will demand testimony; military lawyers will quietly begin assessing legal exposure for anyone who carried out or transmitted the order; career officials inside the Pentagon will look for protective distance; and America’s allies — especially those in NATO and Latin America — will press Washington for clarity and accountability. This is the kind of allegation that fractures civil-military trust. If the evidence holds, the question won’t be whether Hegseth survives politically. It will be whether the U.S. government is willing to prosecute one of its own top national-security officials.

Politicizing Terror. The killing of two National Guard members in Washington has become a political accelerant, and the Trump administration is treating it less as a tragedy than as an opportunity. The White House is using the moment to argue for more deployments and expanded military authorities in its immigration crackdown, framing the deaths as proof that only force and federalized power can restore order. Trump’s language in the aftermath is—as usual—aimed at inflaming the situation so he take advantage of it. His argument: the terror attack shows that the border, the streets and the country itself are under siege, and the only solution is more force, and more military force. That rhetoric carries real consequences. It pressures Pentagon leaders to accept roles they have resisted, it blurs the line between domestic law enforcement and military power, and it shapes public opinion in ways that narrow the debate. Democrats seem on the defensive, caught between condemning the violence and resisting the administration’s push for broader authority. If they cannot articulate a clear alternative rooted in security, legality and proportionality, they risk being painted as cautious or weak at exactly the wrong moment.

Trump’s Fed Takeover. President Trump has been signaling that he’ll tap Kevin Hassett as the next Fed Chair. Alarm bells are going off inside economic and policy circles: Hassett has a record of shaping his views to suit Trump’s politics. As chair of Trump’s Council of Economic Advisers, he publicly defended forecasts and claims that outside analysts—including many conservative economists—dismissed as unrealistic/loony, including the assertion that the 2017 tax cuts would “pay for themselves,” As Democrats and the vast majority of people who can do math predicted, data from the Treasury and CBO soon refuted the Hassett fantasy. Now Trump wants the same brand of Hassett toadyism at the Fed. Installing a loyalist at the nation’s central bank would undermine the Fed’s independence at the very moment when credibility is its only real instrument. This is not an abstract risk. I’m old enough to remember the 1970s, when Fed Chair Arthur Burns succumbed to President Nixon’s pressure for easy money, fueling an inflationary cycle that took a decade—and enormous economic pain—to unwind. A Fed chair who feels politically beholden to the White House could distort interest-rate policy to serve short-term political needs, and “debauch the currency,” in the telling words of John Maynard Keynes, the great liberal economist. The implications are clear: markets grow jittery, borrowing costs become politicized, and working-class households end up absorbing the shock when inflation accelerates and/or confidence breaks.

Sy Hersh Gets His Due. Cover-Up, the upcoming film about Seymour Hersh, arrives at exactly the right moment. The movie is a reminder of what courageous journalism looks like in an era when the corporate media model is shrinking, consolidating, and increasingly vulnerable to political pressure. Hersh built a career on defying power, not currying favor with it. Again and again, he broke big stories that powerful individuals and institutions—from the US military to Richard Nixon, the CIA to George W. Bush—desperately wanted buried. (He got some bis stories wrong, too; accusing Syrian rebels of using chemical weapons and trying to exonerate the Assad regime there was a low point.) But this film about a relentless American journalist lands at just the right time. Trump and his inner circle are openly signaling interest in steering the ownership of major media companies toward friendly billionaires, a strategy that threatens to turn the press into a patronage system rather than a watchdog. Cover-Up isn’t just a biopic; it’s an indictment of the drift in today’s media economy, where hedge funds, conglomerates and political allies can buy influence that guts independence. The movie asks the essential question: Who will do this kind of work now, when truth-telling requires more risk and less institutional support than at any point in modern American journalism? I am glad to be able, in the (so far) small way I’m working here and elsewhere in the New Media, to help answer that crucial question.